UAW Starts Recruitment of VW Workers Who Rejected Union

July 10 (Bloomberg) -- The United Auto Workers has created
a local branch in Tennessee in hopes it will evolve into a
German-style worker council at the Volkswagen AG car factory
where employees rejected an effort to form a union.

UAW officials said Local 42 at the Chattanooga assembly
plant would give employees a voice in the workplace along the
lines of the councils popular at companies in Germany, where the
carmaker is based. While participation is voluntary, the intent
is to convince the company to formally recognize the UAW as a
bargaining unit, union leaders said in a statement today.

“Upon Local 42 signing up a meaningful portion of
Volkswagen’s Chattanooga workforce, we’re confident the company
will recognize Local 42 by dealing with it as a members’ union
that represents those employees who join the local,” Gary
Casteel, the UAW secretary-treasurer, said in a statement.

The union lost a Feb. 14 election supervised by the
National Labor Relations Board by a vote of 712 to 626. The loss
set back UAW efforts to organize workers at manufacturing plants
in the U.S. South, which has long resisted labor unions.

Volkswagen, which had consented to the vote in February,
said today it has no agreement with the UAW and it didn’t
participate in the announcement.

“Just like anywhere else in the world, the establishment
of a local organization is a matter for the trade union
concerned,” according to a statement by the company. “There is
no contract or other formal agreement with UAW on this matter.”

‘Critical Mass’

Kristin Dziczek, director of the industry and labor group
Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor, Michigan, said
setting up the local is a way to “bring some kind of critical
mass” to its organizing effort, following the February loss.

It’s important for the UAW to gain members and stem losses
in recent years, Dziczek said. The union has lost 75 percent of
its members since 1979 as the U.S. auto industry shrank.

Patrick Semmens, vice president at the National Right to
Work Committee, a Springfield, Virginia, group which says it was
formed to fight coercive efforts by labor groups to organize
workers, said the local could only serve in an advisory capacity
under U.S. labor law.

It wouldn’t be eligible to negotiate wage and benefits,
until a formal election is held, he said. The UAW can’t hold a
new vote until a year after the earlier ballot, he said.

He said the group is concerned the formation of the local
will lead to efforts to organize workers without the need for a
secret ballot.

UAW Options

“Just the fact that you have a local doesn’t change
anything,” said Larry Drapkin, a labor attorney at Mitchell
Silberberg & Knupp LLP, which has offices in New York and
Washington. “It is indicative that they aren’t going away.”

The UAW could next seek voluntary recognition from
Volkswagen or ask for a new vote next year, Drapkin said.

Volkswagen, based in Wolfsburg, Germany, didn’t fight the
UAW’s February campaign, and was open to introducing the German-style works council in Chattanooga to represent both salaried
and blue-collar workers.

“Our plant in Chattanooga has the opportunity to create a
uniquely American works council, in which the company would be
able to work cooperatively with our employees,” Frank Fischer,
chairman and chief executive officer of Volkswagen Chattanooga,
said in a statement before the February vote.

Tennessee officials, including Governor Bill Haslam and
Senator Bob Corker, both Republicans, opposed efforts to
organize workers at the plant. David Smith, a spokesman for
Haslam, said in an e-mail, “that there is no agreement between
the company and the UAW.”